Delegation from The Republic of France Represented by Johnson County Community College
Position Paper for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
France believes that the work of UNICEF is fundamental to achieving equal and basic rights to all children. We are now in the 21st century, and yet, many children are still left behind. If the children are left behind, then so is the ability for our world to progress and develop. The issues before the UNICEF committee are those of protecting the rights of the child in post-conflict territories, the implementation of safe water technologies, and promoting global cooperation and UN involvement for the achievement of Millennium development goal 4: reducing child mortality.
Topic I: Protecting the Rights of the child in Post- Conflict Territories
Hundreds of thousands of children are still enlisted in armed forces and groups around the world today, either as direct participants in acts of warfare, or indirect accessories through their work as cooks, porters, spies, deminers, or guards in oil or diamond mines. Minors are often employed in the sex trade. The recruitment and use of children in armed international and internal conflicts is a violation of their fundamental rights. It leads to physical, emotional, and psychological damage that, in the medium and long term, hinders their development and affects their role in society. The situation of child soldiers continues to remain problematic, not only during their direct or indirect participation in hostilities, but also when hostilities have ceased or when they are captured during conflict. In some contexts, child soldiers who are arrested and/or held in detention are subjected to physical or moral violence (cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, detention with adults, interference with minimum procedural safeguards, lack of protection of children’s identities, imposition of death penalty).
For many years, and especially since the January 2007 Paris Conference, France has been particularly involved in promoting and defending the rights of the child. The conference led to the adoption of the “Paris Principles” and “Paris Commitments” to protect children against forced recruitment or use by armed forces or armed groups during conflicts. These documents offer a framework for drafting and implementing new programs for freeing, protecting and reintegrating child soldiers (the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration process, or DDR). France plays an active role in the Security Council working group on Children and armed conflict, over which it presided until the late 2008. With UNICEF alongside the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict, France is organizing a ministerial forum to monitor compliance with the Paris Commitments, in order to maintain and strengthen the political commitment of nations, and develop new programs to protect the affected children in the field and allow and ease their reintegration.
France has supported the work that has been done in the past through Legal instruments governing the rights of the Child, such as: the Geneva Conventions (1949) and additional protocols (1977), the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), The EU Guidelines on the Rights of the Child (2003, amended 2008), and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (July 1990). Since 2008, France has been holding the reins of a multi-year cooperation Project (FSP, €2 millions, 2008-2011) aimed at improving the protection of children during armed conflict in the African Great Lakes region as well as Central and East Africa. France has ratified the N’Djamena Convention in which they pledged to “ensure non-involvement of children below 18 years in conflicts, directly or indirectly; end all forms of recruitment,” and establish a strategy to combat the proliferation and detention of light weapons by children. In Tandem with the FSP project, The French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs (MAEE) provided funding of €700,000 in 2008 to a project with UNICEF and the Democratic Republic of Congo called “Supporting activities for the prevention of child recruitment and the reinsertion of children affected by armed conflict in the DRC”. France has taken steps domestically to address this issue through French Diplomacy by making children’s rights one of the main priorities of cooperation through the FPC project. The cooperation activities seek to establish regular, constant, and constructive dialogue with States and civil society. France celebrates Universal Children’s Day (20 November), which is one of the highlights in France, and it’s diplomatic missions, and features cultural events, round-tale discussions, and more. This policy, based upon the Strategy of democratic governance (adopted in December 2006), takes form in the reinforcement of the capabilities of those involved and the ownership of themes by giving them an active role (especially women) in defining, implementing, and assessing public policies. France promotes a comprehensive approach to the problem and recommends that the following steps be taken to resolve/address the issue of Children in post-conflict territories: First, to assess the implementation of the Paris Commitments and the Paris Principles. Second, examine the need for additional funds to support proven prevention and reintegration programs as well as to monitor compliance by parties to armed conflict. Finally, review the status of Member States’ endorsements and encourage new governments to sign on.
Topic II: Implementation of Safe Water Technologies
Approximately 884 million people do not have access to drinking water and more than 2.6 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation services. Ensuring access to drinking water is one of the Millennium Development Goals. Target 7.C calls for: “Reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015.” On 28 July 2010, the General Assembly passed a resolution recognizing access to safe, clean drinking water as a human right. Resolution A/RES/64/292 was adopted by a vote of 122 in favor (France included), with 41 abstentions. This resolution recognizes access to drinking water and sanitation as a human right essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights. It calls on the States to guarantee this right and stresses the need for cooperation and international assistance. Lastly, the resolution pays tribute to the Human Rights Council’s decision, which makes provision for an annual report to be presented to the General Assembly by the Human Rights Council’s independent expert. France commends the efforts made in the past through the international community to help eradicate the lack of drinking water to developing countries during the Mar del Plata Conference (1977), the Earth Summit in Rio (1992), the Johannesburg Summit (2000), the G8 Summit in Evian (2003), and A United Nations Convention that was adopted in 1997 on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, which France became the 22nd State Party to this Convention in January 2011. This was a commitment made by France at the World Water Forum in Istanbul in 2009. This text is the only universal instrument that defines the international principles relating to the protection and management of transboundary watercourses. There is a great deal at stake: while there is growing pressure on water resources, two thirds of the world’s drainage basins are shared between several States and a major proportion of the global population depends on transboundary water resources for its supply of water for drinking, agriculture, energy and industry. The Convention encourages the implementation, at the regional level, of the mechanisms and organizations necessary for a concerted and responsible approach to sharing resources and the benefits resulting from their development. Its implementation will benefit the countries and regions that do not yet benefit from such regional agreements. France encourages in particular the regional dialogue between the States that share the major African rivers (the Senegal, Niger, Congo, and Nile Rivers) and between Afghanistan and Central Asia. France welcomes the adoption of resolution 64/292. The implementation of this right to have access to drinking water and sanitation will be a key issue at the World Water Forum in Marseille in March 2012.
The Human Rights Council in Geneva also adopted a resolution on the right to safe drinking water and sanitation on 30 September 2010. The adoption of this resolution led to the following statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs’ Spokesperson: “France welcomes the adoption by consensus on September 30 of a resolution on the right to safe drinking water and sanitation which it co-sponsored. This represents a successful outcome, which falls in line with resolution 64/292 adopted by the UNGA on July 28. It gives a strong impetus to the work that has been carried out over the last few years by the HRC and the independent expert, Mrs. de Albuquerque, on this issue that is critical to the lives of billions of individuals deprived of access to safe drinking water and decent sanitation. The right to safe drinking water and sanitation was recognized as a human right by the United Nations. The HRC resolution supplements this and clarifies the main parameters of this right. It affirms in particular that the right to safe drinking water and sanitation is derived from the right to an adequate standard of living. It also emphasizes the primary responsibility of the States: the public authority of each State is responsible for implementing and managing an appropriate system to provide services in line with the effective implementation of this right, regardless of the status of the service providers (public, private, non-profit). The emergence of a consensus on the need to move from theory to practice is very positive: France intends to continue working towards achieving the full support of all stakeholders responsible for ensuring the right to drinking water and sanitation. France, which will host the 6th World Water Forum in Marseille in March 2012, would like this event to enable further progress to be made on the realization of this universal right to drinking water and sanitation, a critical factor with regard to achieving the Millennium Development Goals and in particular those related to maternal and child health.”
France commits to accelerating progress in order to achieve Millennium Development Goal 4, and recommends that the following steps be taken to resolve/address this problem by: First, augmenting efforts, including awareness raising, to address the critical impact of increasing access to safe drinking water, sanitation coverage and hygienic care, including hand washing with soap, on reducing the death rate among children as a result of diarrheal diseases through the WASH initiative (water, sanitation, and hygiene).
Second, France further encourages the strong partnerships through international organizations, such as UNICEF, to provide financial resources, capacity building and technology transfer, through international assistance and cooperation, in particular to developing countries, in order to scale up efforts to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation for all. Lastly, France emphasizes the necessity as expressed by President Sarkozy to “making water a protected resource shared between Nations.” France urges other States to accede to the Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, both within the European Union and outside of it. A total of 35 States must become States Parties to the Convention in order for it to enter into force. This will help to improve governance and international cooperation with regard to water and promote the peaceful management of water resources with a view towards preventing conflicts, and encouraging regional integration and security.
Topic III: Promoting Global Cooperation and UN Involvement for the Achievement of Millennium Development Goal 4: Reducing Child Mortality.
Substantial progress has been made in reducing child deaths. Since 1990, the mortality rate for children under age five in developing countries dropped by 28 per cent—from 100 deaths per 1,000 live births to 72 in 2008. Globally, the total number of under-five deaths declined from 12.5 million in 1990 to 8.8 million in 2008. This means that, in 2008, 10,000 fewer children died each day than in 1990. An encouraging sign is the acceleration of progress after the year 2000: the average annual rate of decline increased to 2.3 per cent for the period 2000 to 2008, compared to 1.4 per cent in the 1990s. France is deeply concerned that, despite these achievements, and the fact that most child deaths are preventable or treatable, many countries still have unacceptably high levels of child mortality and have made little or no progress in recent years.President Sarkozy pledged at the G8 in Muskoka (Canada) in June 2010 to contribute up to €500 million to the Muskoka Initiative for the period 2011-2015. The members of the G8 and their partners pledged at this summit to provide an additional $5 billion by 2015 in funding to fight infant and maternal mortality. According to WHO estimates, the Muskoka Initiative will enable developing countries to prevent the death of 1.3 million under five and 64,000 maternal deaths and provide access to modern methods of family planning to 12 million couples. France contributes to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), a non-governmental humanitarian organization established in 2000. This unique public/ private partnership aims to save the lives of children and to protect the health of populations by expanding access to vaccinations in the poorest countries in the world. GAVI provides vaccines against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenza type b, or Hib, by making good use of state-of-the-art technology, such as the pentavalent vaccine, which combines all of the vaccines. France provided contributions of €15 million between 2003 and 2006 to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization. France is also engaged alongside the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in promoting sexual and reproductive health through an annual voluntary contribution. It provided €2.2 million in 2009. In addition, it provides funding to a project worth €2 million, implemented by the UNFPA and the association, quilibres et Populations, aimed at fighting maternal mortality and ending obstetric fistula in Africa. France devotes a major share of its Official Development Assistance to improving health in developing countries and has real experience in this area. Health, which is one of the 5 priority areas for French development assistance, therefore represented 11.6% of Official Development Assistance, i.e. slightly more than €1 billion, in 2009. France and Norway launched the “Foreign Policy and Global Health” initiative in 2006 in New York in collaboration with Brazil, Thailand, Indonesia, South Africa and Senegal.
France is taking steps to make foreign policies more responsive to health issues, to take action with respect to the foreign policy dimension of health issues, and thus help achieve the MDGs by 2015. France recommends that the following steps be taken to resolve/address this problem: First, by promoting efforts to achieve integrated management of childhood illnesses, particularly actions to address and prevent the main causes of child mortality, including newborn and infant mortality, these being, inter alia, pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria and malnutrition. This can be achieved by developing, implementing and evaluating appropriate national strategies, policies and programmes for child survival, preventive pre-natal, para-natal and post-natal measures, vaccinations and immunization and by working to ensure that medicines, medical products and technologies are affordable and available. In addition, this can be achieved by improved nutrition, including nutrition prior to birth, as well as by strengthening specific health interventions, including emergency obstetric care and skilled attendance at birth to reduce maternal and child mortality. International support to national efforts, including financial resources, will continue to be key in this regard. Secondly, France encourages sustaining major successes and increasing prevention and vaccination programs as one of the most efficient tools to reduce child mortality, including the measles, polio, tuberculosis and tetanus campaigns, by ensuring sufficient funding, political commitment and conscientious implementation of control activities, especially in priority countries. Lastly, France would like to stress the importance of maintaining progress with regard to combating malaria and the extension of the use of insecticide-treated bed nets through UNICEF’s “Spread the Net” initiative.